Her whole life, the things that felt so solid and kept her tethered to the earth were all in Heron Key. Without them, how would she live? Wouldn’t she just float up and away, to be lost forever? But I be with Henry. He keep me safe. She squeezed her eyes shut tight but could not picture it. It was not real. This was real, this dusty street lined with familiar stores, and their little house, and the beach, and… “What about Mama? And Selma? What about Nathan? I got to say good-bye. I got to get a bag—”
“Don’t you see, Missy?” He was trying to smile but only managed an ugly grimace, which turned him into a stranger. “We ain’t got time for any of that. You got to come right now, as you are. Missy, please.”
She stood still. “Why? Why we need to go like this?”
“You know what they think I done,” he said, close to her ear. “All of it. I ain’t waitin’ around for their so-called justice. I got no choice, Missy. I got to run. You got no idea, no idea what they’ll do to me if I stay.”
They had attracted the attention of a small knot of people, storekeepers and customers, drawn outside by the commotion. Henry shoved the gun in his pocket. She had never seen him so afraid. The acrid sweat of fear dripped from his face. “But how this gonna help?” She gestured at the truck. “If you run, they just say it’s ’cause you guilty. And takin’ a white boy with you? That just gonna make it worse. You always sayin’ things won’t change till we change ’em. Stay—stay and fight.”
“I cain’t win, Missy,” he said with a dejected shake of his head. “Not this fight.”
A group of men left the barbershop and strode in their direction, frowns all around. Henry said, “We got to—I got to go, right now. Come with me. Please.”
She tried to reach out for him. If she could just touch him, maybe he would see there was another way. But Selma’s arm went around her shoulders, as much to hold her back as to support her. “He right, Missy,” she said. “He got to go. Let him go.”
“No, wait, don’t go, please.” It was all happening too fast. A minute before, her biggest worry was him being in jail. Now she realized this might be the last time she ever saw him. Tears of frustration and loss scorched her eyes. “If you run, if you go, like this,” she said as she strained against Selma’s arm, sobs choking her voice, “you won’t never be able to show your face here again. Never.”
“I know,” he said, but he was already turning away from her. “I sorry, Missy. I so sorry.”
And then he was gone. The truck headed off just as the clouds released their burden. She watched the pickup until it disappeared behind the heavy curtain of rain. Fat raindrops splashed down her face, but they were not enough to wash away the tears. Not nearly enough.
• • •
Henry held Dwayne’s revolver to Jimmy’s side as they made their way up the coast road. The truck’s engine coughed and slowed. “Keep drivin’,” he said.
“Wh-what you gonna do to me?” Sweat darkened Jimmy’s collar. His voice was hoarse with fear, and his cap drooped forlornly. The dashboard lit his face with a sickly glow.
“Don’t talk.”
Rain spattered the windshield and mixed with the dust on the glass. The coast road brought them alongside the camp. He would not be able to stop to say his good-byes, but at least he could see the place one more time, imagine his boys in the mess hall with their first beer of the evening. They thought he was in jail, which was bad enough, but not as bad as being on the run. Yet more people he had let down… He thought of their familiar faces, creased with confusion and worry when they heard what he had done. As the truck passed the camp, the wind carried to him the sound of laughter from the mess hall.
What am I doing? Leaving all this behind? He wondered if Missy was right, if he could have stayed and argued it out. She seemed so certain, but she had not seen the homicidal glint in the deputy’s eyes. He was a man barely in control of himself—Henry had seen enough of them in his time to recognize that look—and it would only take the tiniest excuse to push him over. Had Jimmy not been there to intervene, Henry might already be just a smear on the jail cell wall.
He wanted to think that he would make it up to them, to Missy, to all of them—one day. But deep inside, he knew it was the last time he would see Heron Key. He had an infinite capacity to accept disappointment and despair, built up over long and bitter experience, but hope—hope fairly ripped the heart out of him. For a brief moment, Missy had given him hope.
Of all the journeys he had been forced to make, this one was the hardest. He had always been in a hurry to leave places, to keep going, always in motion. But now all he wanted to do was stay. It had not been long since he returned to Heron Key, compared to how long he was away, but the place held on to him with a grip of steel. The only way to wrench himself free was to leave the best part of himself behind. And that, he decided, was where it belonged.
“Where to?” asked Jimmy.
“North,” said Henry. He had never felt so weary in his life. “Just north.”
• • •
Trent’s day had started so well. Roberts was in custody and the other men were subdued. They had gone off meekly to work that morning, leaving him free to catch up on paperwork. Things were under control again, just as he liked them to be. He had allowed himself a sigh of satisfaction and a fresh cigar.
Then the weather deteriorated. The rain blew in sideways. The storm flags were out, which replaced the lanterns during the day. They crackled in the stiff wind. And then Jenson Mitchell had called again to advise Trent that the storm was now officially classed a hurricane, although still not predicted to hit Heron Key.
“Mr. Watts, you have to get your men out of here,” he had said. “They’re very exposed. If—”
“But, Mr. Mitchell, you’ve just said it’s not headed here.” He stared at the rotting canvas roof of the cabin. A spider had built a nest in the frame. Out of the fluffy white ball would soon pour hundreds of tiny beasts, rushing to infest his gear, trail across his face while he slept. God, I hate this place. This ain’t purgatory. It’s hell. He fried the spider’s nest with the end of his cigar. Mitchell’s calm, soft-spoken voice nearly drove him crazy.
“Whatever the weather center says, my bet is on the barometer. I’ve never seen it drop so fast. I urge you to get the men out. Just think of the potential consequences.”
Trent had done little else since midafternoon. The sky was a washed-out noncolor he had never seen before, a kind of yellowish gray. The wind seemed to blow hard from several directions at once. The surf was a disorganized mess of brown and white. “I can’t order an evacuation based on your gut, Mr. Mitchell, but I will confer with my superiors. Good day to you.”
His first conversation with Norbert Grimes up in Jacksonville had not gone well, and he did not relish a second. Yes, the sky looked strange and angry, but that could just mean the daily downpour was on its way. Trent had become accustomed to them. Towering thunderheads of darkest purple would barrel in, deluge them for a few minutes, and the steamy sunshine would return. It could simply be more of the same.
Before the war, where he spent several weeks in a freezing trench, Trent had always thought of himself as a cold weather man. As a boy, he felt more alive during the winter than any other time of year, like he was energized from the inside out. The crack of falling ice, the swish of his sled, the deep, total silence of falling snow, more quiet than anything in the world…these were his favorite sounds.
That all changed during the winter in France. For a time, he had ceased to remember what it was to be warm, that there even was such a thing as warm. He lost three toes to frostbite and would have lost more if his tour of duty had not ended. The Heron Key contract had seemed just the thing for his scarred old body. A tropical sojourn was just what he needed, with palm trees, clear water, white sand, and friendly local women with suntanned faces.
He scratched at the mosquito bites on
his arm. It seemed that the local insects found him a lot tastier than the women did. They regarded him as no different from the veterans, whom they considered to be dangerous drunks and criminals. He realized that his bald head and armfuls of tattoos might not help, but he still resented being lumped in together with the crazy sons of bitches under his supervision.
The phone rested on his desk like a genie’s lamp. How to make it work for him? How could he communicate to Grimes, up in the civilized world, what life was like on Heron Key? How precarious it was, on this little spit of land, barely above sea level? He doubted that Grimes had ever considered it, from the vantage of his safe, hygienic metropolis. And what if Mitchell was right and the storm did devastate the camp? Whose name would forever be associated with it? Not Norbert Grimes. He picked up the phone. The remains of his lunch curdled in his gut.
It was clear from Grimes’s tone of voice that he was less than thrilled to hear from Trent again, probably because he was preparing to head to the golf course. “You can see my position,” Grimes said. “It’s a helluva lot of egg on my face if it turns out to be a false alarm. Like last time.” The sound became muffled as Grimes covered the receiver. “Be right with you, Bill!”
Trent stifled a groan of frustration. Grimes was an administrator, had never been in the field, but he did happen to be married to the governor’s daughter.
Trent knew all too well about “last time” and why Grimes had brought up the incident from the past. It was too good an opportunity for him to pass up. It had taken place a few weeks after the veterans’ camp was set up. Most of them had no experience of the tropics, Trent included, but all knew enough to fear the deadly yellow fever. It was impossible to avoid the mosquitoes, which swarmed so densely at dusk that they resembled earthbound rain clouds. The men were all alert to the symptoms: flu-like fever and bloody vomit, followed by the classic yellowing of the skin that signaled liver failure. It was so highly contagious that it could take hold of the camp within a day or two.
So when Mo Hendricks, an infantryman from Chicago, collapsed and died a few days later with those very symptoms, Trent had been straight on the phone to Grimes to request an evacuation. Grimes was not convinced and ordered a postmortem, and the conclusion was that Hendricks had died of acute alcoholism. Ever since, Trent had been tainted by Grimes’s insinuations that he was liable to panic.
Having survived a year in the trenches of France, panic was the last thing that Trent was liable to do. He could barely prevent the resentment from seeping into his voice. He had withstood the most extreme circumstances ever, and never, not once, had he panicked. Not even when, stranded for three days in a flooded shell hole, he had eaten the rats that came to feast on his dead comrades. I wonder how long Norbert would have lasted there.
Grimes’s exasperated sigh trickled into Trent’s ear. He just imagined the man’s longing look at his golf clubs, anticipating his first cocktail of the evening. Grimes asked, “Trent, what does the weather forecast say?”
“It’s a hurricane now, for sure. Looks like it will hit north of here but could still—”
“So if it’s going to hit elsewhere,” asked Grimes, “why the panic?” Trent dug his fingers into the wood of the desk to stop himself shouting. Grimes continued, “Try to look at it from my point of view.”
That would be from the fifteenth hole, I guess? Trent took a deep breath and decided to make one more attempt—and document the conversation in his log. It was all he could do. “Mr. Grimes, I’m not panicking. It won’t take more than a stiff breeze to flatten the camp, much less a bad storm. Hell, the water comes right up to the perimeter sometimes at high tide. The locals have seen telltale clouds, and the barometer keeps falling. We need you to order the train now—”
“And by the time it arrives,” said Grimes, “this whole thing could have blown over, and not only will we have wasted taxpayers’ money, but we’ll look like idiots who got suckered in by the local folklore. Keep me informed, Trent. I’ve been advised that we can get those boys out of there in three hours if we need to.”
Easy for you to say, 370 miles away. “Yes, Mr. Grimes.”
Trent hung up the phone and stared at nothing for a moment. He was not a believer in much of anything, not fate, or destiny, or even God. But he felt himself in the grip of something huge, some force of incredible strength. As a boy, he had once lost control of his sled on an icy hill and tumbled helplessly, over and over, completely at gravity’s mercy. He opened his log on the desk and checked his watch. 1730 hours, he wrote. I spoke to Mr. Grimes and advised him of the deteriorating weather situation…
• • •
Down at his shack in the mangroves, Zeke was frantic. He spun around the little room so jerkily that even Poncho could not maintain his grip. The bird perched on the back of a spindly wooden chair to clean his feathers.
Zeke felt the monster’s breath. It blew hot on his neck. He could hear its roar. Not far away now. He would remain at his post. He would defend the town to his last heartbeat. But a warrior needed a weapon.
He had found it in the drainage pipe after yesterday’s big rain, covered in weeds and mud. Although it was broken and stained, he sensed it still had power inside. He had seen the way the rich folks treasured such weapons.
He took it by the handle now and swished it experimentally through the air a few times, as he had seen the folks in white do it. The air made a satisfying hum sound through the sagging strings.
He would need all the power left in his weapon. As darkness spread across the sky, he saw it: two red lights appeared up the coast. The monster had opened its eyes.
Chapter 17
Jenson dumped a heavy sack of potatoes in the back room of the store and stretched his tired muscles. The sounds of preparation could be heard all over town: windows being boarded up, shutters secured, loose objects and animals stowed away, supplies gathered into shelters. Water had been decanted from the cisterns, as it would get contaminated even if they did not blow over. His store had sold out of candles and matches and most of the canned goods. If the storm was bad—and he grimaced at the hopefulness of that “if”—it could be days before they got any fresh food in. The Coast Guard’s hurricane warning buoys had started to wash up on shore, dropped to alert islanders and boaters. The marina had emptied out overnight. The boat owners with any sense had fled to safer moorings by now.
He and Trudy had almost finished their work. The store would serve as the main shelter for the town, as it had so many times before. They had moved most of the stock to the back room to create as much space as possible.
As he unpacked their old lanterns, he could not get his last conversation with Trent Watts out of his mind. He had clearly failed to persuade the superintendent of the threat. How could he communicate to someone who had never experienced a hurricane what it was like? How it could tear your home to pieces, snatch your loved ones right out of your arms? How it could throw cars and trees around like they were toys?
The barometer’s descent had begun again, faster than he had ever seen it. But they were ready, he felt. The tidy interior of the store reassured him. It had served them well in the past. There was no reason to believe that this time would be any different. Fred was still confident the storm was in no hurry and would come ashore well to the north of Heron Key. Jenson had done everything possible to prepare. So why then could he not shake the feeling, deep in his bones, that it was not enough? And that this time would be very, very different?
Trudy deposited another box of canned pears. She straightened, hands braced against the small of her back. “You think we’re ready?”
“Yes, we are…” The image of the veteran’s camp lurked in his head, the men going about their normal routine with no earthly idea of what was bearing down on them—and soon, according to the barometer.
“Tell me,” she said and took a seat on a sack of cornmeal.
“I can’
t help thinking about them…the veterans.” His eyes toured the store again, calculating. “Do you think—?”
“No, we do not have room for them here. There isn’t room in the town for that number of men, not with hundreds of locals. And, Son”—her tone softened—“even if we did, you can’t have men like that cooped up with women and children for hours on end.”
“I guess you’re right.” He sighed. “It’s just that—”
“There are plenty of people, official people, who have responsibility for them. It’s their job to see them right, not yours. Now come on,” she said as she stood up and stretched. “We got enough to do already without spending time worrying about a bunch of”—she hesitated, searched for the right word—“people, who by rights shouldn’t even be here.” She studied his face closely. “There’s something else?”
“You’ve been through a lot of these storms,” he said. “Anything feel…different to you?” He could rationalize the feeling away in any number of ways: that Fred had the most accurate information, from shipping and spotter planes, and that Heron Key’s preparations had always seen them through the storms of the past. But his gut did not agree. There was something different this time, and he had no idea why. It was completely indefinable. It pinged around in his head like a bead of mercury each time he tried to get a fix on it. It was telling him, in his most primitive core, below the level of conscious thought, that he should do just one thing, and quickly: run. Just run.
She shrugged. “Can’t say so, not really. The worst ones come when it’s hottest, and it’s plenty hot now. But I trust your gut, Jenson, more than anything Fred has to say. What’s it telling you?”
He thought for a moment about how to answer.
No one’s interests were served by a panic. His mother had never been susceptible to that. So he looked at her steadily and said, “This may be worse than we thought.”
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